Membership has its benefits...

The Writers’ Guild Of Great Britain made the most of the opportunity to try to drum up new memberships at the sitcom discussion it organised in London last night with Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran.

During the event, Dave Cohen – chairman of the union’s comedy committee – recalled a story about David Nobbs, when he was still a jobbing writer, long before creating Reginald Perrin.

He used to pen routines for Frankie Howerd, who liked all his ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ ‘ad-libs’ included in the script. Nobbs found the best way to do this was to pace around, speaking them in Howerd’s voice.

One night he decided to take some air, and was working out his latest routine on Clapham Common – which attracted the attention of the constabulary. The officers approached him and  asked what he was doing, making all these weird noises

He flashed his Writers’ Guild membership card; they nodded - and let him go, happy he wasn’t an escaped lunatic.

Published: 23 May 2017